Back

Competition / Competitors We face significant competition in all aspects of our business. Specifically, we compete for members, enterprises and professional organizations; the bases upon which we compete differ among these areas as discussed below. • Members—Professional Networks. The market for online professional networks is new and rapidly evolving. Other companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter could develop competing solutions or partner with third parties to offer such products. We face competition from a number of smaller companies in international markets, such as Xing in Germany and Viadeo in France, that provide online professional networking solutions, as well as Internet companies in the customer relationship management market, such as Salesforce.com (Chatter and Jigsaw). Because membership on our website is available at no cost, we don’t compete for members on the basis of price. Instead, we compete primarily on the basis of the value and relevance of the products for professionals, ease of use and availability of our website and our products and solutions, and the total number of professional members and relevant data available. • Enterprises and Professional Organizations—Recruiting. With respect to our hiring solutions, we compete with established online recruiting companies such as Monster+HotJobs and CareerBuilder, talent management companies, such as Taleo, and traditional recruiting firms. In this area, we compete primarily on the basis of the efficiency and usefulness of our solutions for enterprises and professional organizations, which are influenced by the number and engagement of our members. • Enterprises and Professional Organizations—Advertising and Marketing. With respect to our marketing solutions, we compete with online and offline outlets that generate revenue from advertisers and marketers. In this area, we compete to attract and retain advertisers by giving them access to the most relevant and targeted audiences for their products or services. Other companies that provide content for professionals could develop more compelling offerings that compete with our premium subscriptions and adversely impact our ability to sell and renew subscriptions to our members. Additionally, companies that currently focus primarily on social networking could expand into professional networking or users of social networks could choose to use, or increase the use of, those networks for professional networking. We believe that we have competitive strengths that position us favorably in our markets. However, our industry is evolving rapidly and is becoming increasingly competitive. Larger and more established companies may focus on professional networking and could directly compete with us. Smaller companies could also launch new products and services that we do not offer and that could gain market acceptance quickly.